1871 — Smallpox, esp. Philadelphia/1,879, Cincinnati/1,179, NYC/805, Chicago/MI/NJ–4,505
— >4,505 Wayne Blanchard compilation based on State breakouts below.[1]
Illinois ( 73) Chicago
–73 Chicago. US National Board of Health. Annual Report of…1883, p. 134.[2]
Michigan ( 73)
–73 Michigan Secretary of State. Sixteenth Annual Report…for the Year 1882.p. 269.
New Jersey ( ~96) Essex County
— ~96 Essex County. Medical Society of New Jersey. Transactions… 1872, pp. 217-218.
New York ( 805) New York City
–805 NYC.Annual Report…Dept. of Health…City of New York for Years 1911-1912., p. 227.
–22 Dec 17-23. New York Times. “The Small-Pox.” 12-29-1871.[3]
— 6 Oct 29-Nov 4 NYT. “Board of Health – Alarming Increase in Small-Pox.” 11-9-1871, 5.
Ohio (1,179) Cincinnati
–1,179 Cincinnati. Twitchell. “The Prevention of Smallpox.” The Lancet-Clinic. 1906, p. 693.
— 847 Cincinnati. Blanchard estimate.[4]
Pennsylvania (2,279) Philadelphia (1,879) and Pittsburgh (400), especially Sep-Dec
–1,879 Philadelphia. City of Philadelphia. Annual Report (Vol. III), 1907, p. 99.[5]
–153 Nov 19-25. New York Times. “Small-Pox in Philadelphia.” 12-4-1871, p. 1.[6]
–233 Nov 26-Dec 2. New York Times. “Small-Pox in Philadelphia.” 12-4-1871, p. 1.[7]
— 400 Pittsburgh. Corn. “Social Response to Epidemic Disease in Pittsburgh 1872-1895.” P 61.
Philadelphia 1871-1872:
–4,464 1871-72, winter of. Med. Soc. PA. Transactions…June 1872. V. IX, Is. I, p. 197.[8]
–4,464 1871-72. Willsey & Lewis. “Philadelphia,” Harper’s Book of Facts. 1895, p. 628.
–4,417 Sep 1871-Aug 1872. Wells. “Meteorology and Epidemics of Philadelphia.” 1873, 136.[9]
Narrative Information
New Jersey, Essex County
Medical Society of New Jersey: “Epidemic influences have been marked in Essex County over a large portion of the district during the year. From May 1, 1871 to April 26, 1872, 930 cases of Small Pox were reported in the city of Newark, 120 proving fatal. The largest number, 203, occurred in May; the smallest, 15, occurred in September. Between these months there was a gradual decline, since September there has been a gradual increase. In March [1872] the number was 111. On the 20th of May [1872] the disease appeared in Orange. From that time till May 1, 1872, 71 cases have occurred, all but 10 of them occurred before the 3d of August; of 61 cases 24 were fatal, 7 had been vaccinated, 15 were unprotected, of the remaining two, evidence of vaccination was doubtful; 2 of the fatal cases were puerperal.: (pp. 217-218)[10]
New York City and Brooklyn[11]
Nov 21: “There has been a sudden and very great increase in the cases of small-pox reported to the Bureau of Sanitary Inspection. Twenty-three cases were reported from Saturday noon until yesterday. One of these cases reported in person, the sufferer entering the office of the City Sanitary Inspector in search of relief, to the great consternation of the clerks. The patient was taken away to the hospital will all possible sped, and the office was liberally sprinkled with carbolic acid….” (New York Times. “Rapid Increase in Small-Pox.” 11-21-1871, p. 2.)
Dec 14: “The Health Committee of the Board of Alderman, in company with the Health Officer, waited upon the Mayor yesterday [14th], to see what could be done to prevent the spread of small-pox in the city. Dr. Cochran, Health Officer, stated that the Board was out of money, and that the disease was epidemic. He said that the Board of Health was without the necessary funds for the employment of extra vaccinators. In this emergency he strongly recommended the use of vaccination and keeping the streets clean…
“The Mayor inquired where the money was to come from, and then cited section 11, title 10, of the Laws of the City of Brooklyn, which authorized the Common Council to borrow money on a certificate, to be signed by the Mayor, the Health Officer of the city and presiding officer of the Kings County Medical Society, when necessary for the preservation of health.
“The Mayor stated that the proper course to pursue was for the Committee to have that certificate made out and signed and then have it presented to the Common Council for action. Health Officer Cochran replied: If you don’t give me money I can’t work, that’s all about it. Take the keys yourself, and be responsible for the results. The Health Committee subsequently instructed Dre. Cochran to employ all the needed assistance in vaccinating the people, and preventing, as far as possible, the spread of the disease.” (New York Times. “Brooklyn News. The Small-Pox Declared Epidemic – What is to be Done About It.” 12-5-1871, p. 3.)
Dec 16: “It is said that the small-pox exists in every ward in the city, and that it is most virulent in the Sixth, Tenth, Fifth, Eighth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Seventeenth, Fifteenth, Fourteenth and Seventh Wards. Last week there was a daily average of eight cases reported. On Wednesday there were twelve cases, and on Thursday and Friday twenty cases. It is feared that the report, which will be made on Monday [18th], of the progress of the disease during the week, will create wide-spread alarm. Active preparations are being made by the health authorities to check the progress of the disease by means of vaccination, and the Health Committee is in daily conference with the Health Officer to this end.” (New York Times. “Brooklyn News. The Progress of the Small-Pox.” 12-16-1871, p. 2.)
Dec 17: “The following is a statement of the work of the Health Office for the suppression of smallpox: It is found that in every district where vaccination was carried out the disease is comparatively limited, but in those localities in which it had not been attended to, small-pox is raging. The extra staff were discharged on the 1st inst., when their work was half done, through economy. That economy amounts to this, that the physicians have since that time lost $700 worth of vaccine. During the Summer the Health Board were obliged to pay $1,000 for vaccine, whereas, by a continuation of vaccination, a sufficient quantity of virus could have been obtained from those who had been vaccinated. Dr. Cochran is now engaged in ascertaining the requisite amount of money for the work, and will present the necessary papers on Monday to the Common Council, signed by the Mayor, the presiding officer of the Kings County Medical Society, and the Health Officer, provided they can be obtained.” (New York Times. “Brooklyn News. The Small-Pox.” 12-17-1871, p. 3.)
Dec 20: “The small-pox is extending rapidly in almost all sections of the city, and no district is free from it, persons being taken with it who are in well-regulated hospitals in the city. In some cases the disease has been traced to the Sixteenth Ward and to other localities, but in a great many instances the origin cannot be traced at all. On Sunday [17th] ten patients were removed to the Small-pox Hospital, at Flatbush, and twenty were left at their residences. Dr. Cochran, the Health Officer, permits patients to remain in their own homes, when their friends are able and willing to care for them, , and no forcible removal to the county institution is in any case attempted. Yesterday four patients were removed to the Small-pox Hospital. Dr. Carnochan is doing all in his power to prevent the spread of the disease, but without material aid he is comparatively powerless. He has already set four men at work on his own responsibility, vaccinating and disinfecting certain localities, and he now asks the co-operation of the Health Committee of the Board of Aldermen. He desires that money shall be appropriated by the Common Council for the thorough cleansing of the city and for the employment of a sufficient number of physicians to vaccinate all who are to poor too procure that service for themselves. The report for the last week shows that there were no vaccinations by the Health authorities. Vaccine matter has almost run out, and something must be done to procure a fresh supply. The Common Council did nothing yesterday for the reason that a resolution for the appropriation of money had not been agreed upon by the Committee. Delays such as these are dangerous….” (New York Times. “The Small-Pox–The Disease Extending Rapidly.” 12-20-1871, p. 2.)
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Medical Society of PA: “The Smallpox epidemic of the winter of 1871-72 was entirely without a parallel in this city [Philadelphia], whether we regard the number of individuals attacked or the virulence of the disease. Indeed it was everywhere characterized by extreme severity….The history of its rise in this city was fully given in the report of your committee for 1871. The year 1872 found the city most completely in its grasp. No district was sufficiently exclusive to bar its entrance – no apartment sufficiently secluded to escape its powers of penetration….
“The first week in January, ending with the sixth day, say 230 deaths from this cause, lacking only three of being the most fatal week of the epidemic. The following, it fell to 216, and the mortality for the entire month showed a very slight improvement as compared with the month previous, being 832, while that for December was 861. In February it fell rapidly to 457, to rise again, however, in March to 536. By this time the apprehensions of the community both in the city and at a distance, were so thoroughly aroused, that according to the careful estimates of the officers of one of our lines of street cars…forty-four thousand persons fewer rode in the cars of that one company, during that one month, than would have done so but for the presence of the infection….
“Applying the same reasoning [from 1871 report], and your committee confess themselves unable to find a flaw in it, to the mortality from variola in 1872, which reached the startling figure of 2585, we should have the number of preventable deaths during the first four months of this year about 2070, which added to those of the previous year gives a grand total for a period covering little over seven months of 3579 deaths, which might have been averted by the careful and systematic employment of means with the value of which we were thoroughly acquainted. This neglect must be attributed to a shameful apathy on the one hand and to gross ignorance and vulgar prejudice on the other. A terrible burden of responsibility, let it fall where it may. Can we as a profession escape our share of it? However faithfully we may have discharged our obligations in the premises as individuals, have we in our collective capacity brought to bear that influence on this most important question which our position, as one of the great learned professions, entitles us to exert?
“In reviewing the history of this epidemic, your committee cannot shirk the responsibility of considering the manner in which the city authorities acquitted themselves of the grave duties which devolved upon them in the presence of so deadly a foe. They are forced to the conclusion that their operations were conducted rather from a mercantile than a humanitarian standpoint, with a view to husbanding trade rather than human life. So great was the dread of ‘frightening away’ business from the city that obvious precautions, such as were taken in other cities, were here neglected lest the impression should get abroad that the disease prevailed to an alarming extent. Beyond increasing the number of vaccine physicians, and enforcing the existing law in regard to the vaccination of children entering the public schools, measures which, to prove effective, should have been adopted a year before when the first note of warning was sounded by this society, and which could be construed only as precautionary by those at a distance, scarce anything was done to check the progress of the contagion. Your committee do not wish to be understood as charging the Board of Health or the City Councils with parsimony in their expenditures. Hospital accommodations, which Dr. Welch considered ample, were provided for the plague-stricken, and nothing was neglected that could minister to their comfort or promote their recovery. But these officers seem to have considered it their first duty not so much to openly fight the infection as to conceal its existence.
“The daily journals, acting evidently under advice, either willfully suppressed facts or were not supplied with them, and treated the whole matter in a light and trifling spirit. It will scarcely be believed that, at a time when every hour that struck was the death knell of one or more souls cut off by this single disease – when all night long the streets reverberated to the rumble of vehicles of every description, surreptitiously bearing away the unattended bodies of its victims, alike from the mansion and the hovel, to graves unhallowed by prayer or tear – that at such a time, one of our leading papers could come out with the unblushing statement that the disease was not then and had not been, ‘in the true sense of the term,’ epidemic in the city, and could father the astounding assertion upon the Board of Health. And yet strange things might certainly be expected of a Board of Health, one of whose members, in his anxiety to keep down the number of cases reported, could openly say, that any physician who returned his cases of varioloid was taking unnecessary trouble, as the law only specified smallpox. That we may appreciate the cruel – we might almost say criminal – neglect from which the city suffered in obedience to the behests of the mercantile element in the community, let us notice what steps were taken in other towns to arrest the spread of the contagion, and compare out own action with theirs.”
“The able and interesting report of our fellow member, Dr. Wm. M. Welch, in his capacity of Physician to the Municipal Hospital, for the year 1871, affords us a means of approximating to an insight into the degree to which the disease is preventable. After a careful analysis of all the cases which fell under his care in respect to vaccinal and variolous history, vaccinal marks, severity of attack, and result, he considers himself entitled to conclude that of the 1879 deaths caused by this disease during the last few months of that year, the immense proportion of 1509 might have been prevented by thorough vaccination and revaccination.” (Medical Society of PA. Transactions… Medical Society…State of Pennsylvania…Twenty-Third Annual Session…June 1872, p. 197-199.)
Sources
Board of Health. Annual Report of the Board of Health of the Department of Health of The City of New York for the Year Ending December 31, 1912. NYC: 1913. Google preview accessed 11-26-2019: https://books.google.com/books?id=XqMGqwcyOp8C&ppis=_e&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=1871&f=true
City of Philadelphia. First Annual Message of John E. Reyburn, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia with the Annual Reports of the Departments of Public Health and Charities, Supplies, Public Education, Law, City Controller, City Treasurer, Commissioners of the Sinking Funds, Receiver of Taxes, and Board of Revision of Taxes for the Year Ending December 31, 1907 (Vol. III). Philadelphia: Dunlap Printing Co., 1908. Google digitized. Assessed 12-5-2012: http://books.google.com/books?id=0ihNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Corn, Jacqueline Karnell. “Social Response to Epidemic Disease in Pittsburgh 1872-1895.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 56, No. 1, 1973, pp. 59-70. Accessed 2-12-2015 at: https://journals.psu.edu/wph/article/viewFile/3201/3032 > and at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11615048
Corn, Jacqueline Karnell. “Social Response to Epidemic Disease in Pittsburgh 1872-1895.” Western Pennsylvania History, Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 59-70, Jan 1973. Accessed 10-18-2013 at: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=consumption+tuberculosis+1879+1880&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C39&as_sdtp=#
Illinois State Board of Health. Fifth Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Illinois. Springfield, IL: H. W. Rokker State Printer and Binder, 1883. Digitized by Google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=rR-086nb37cC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true
Medical Society of New Jersey. Transactions of the Medical Society of New Jersey, 1872. Newark, NJ: Jennings & Hardham, Steam Printers and Bookbinders, 1872. Google digitized. Accessed 1-27-2015 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=aUqEOQivuI8C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania. Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania at Its Twenty-Third Annual Session…June 1872 (Vol. IX., Part I). Philadelphia, PA: The Society, 1872. Digitized by Google. At: http://books.google.com/books?id=XqYRAAAAYAAJ
Michigan Secretary of State. Sixteenth Annual Report Relating to the Registry and Return of Births, Marriages, and Deaths in Michigan for the Year 1882. Lansing: W. S. George & Co., State Printers and Binders, 1884. Google digitized. Accessed 10-31-2013 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=X8sWAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Mitchell, E. W., M.D. “History of Epidemics in Cincinnati.” University of Cincinnati Medical Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1920, pp. 10-18. Accessed 3-15-2015 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=cvErAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
New York Times. “Board of Health – Alarming Increase in Small-Pox – Statistics of the Past Week.” 11-9-1871, p. 5. Accessed 11-28-2019 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1871/11/09/79002627.html?pageNumber=5
New York Times. “Brooklyn News. The Progress of the Small-Pox.” 12-16-1871, p. 2. Accessed 11-28-2019 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1871/12/16/79007911.html?pageNumber=2
New York Times. “Brooklyn News. The Small-Pox.” 12-17-1871, p. 3. Accessed 11-28-2019 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1871/12/17/79008034.html?pageNumber=3
New York Times. “Brooklyn News. The Small-Pox Declared Epidemic – What is to be Done About It.” 12-5-1871, p. 3. Accessed 11-28-2019 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1871/12/15/79007739.html?pageNumber=3
New York Times. “Rapid Increase in Small-Pox.” 11-21-1871, p. 2. Accessed 11-28-2019 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1871/11/21/issue.html
New York Times. “Small-Pox in Philadelphia.” 12-4-1871, p. 1. Accessed 11-28-2019 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1871/12/04/79005943.html?pageNumber=1
New York Times. “The Small-Pox.” 12-29-1871. Accessed 11-28-2019 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1871/12/29/
New York Times. “The Small-Pox–The Disease Extending Rapidly.” 12-20-1871, p. 2. Accessed 11-28-2019: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1871/12/20/79008393.html?pageNumber=2
Twitchell, George B, MD (Cincinnati). “The Prevention of Smallpox.” Pp. 693-696 in The Lancet-Clinic (Weekly Journal of Medicine and Surgery). New Series, Vol. LVI. Cincinnati: Lancet-Clinic Co., Jan-June, 1906. Google preview accessed 4-29-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=4RACAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
United States National Board of Health. Annual Report of the National Board of Health, 1883. Washington, DC: GPO, 1884. Digitized by Google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=MtuxEGC1Vp4C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true
Wells, Wm. L. “Meteorology and Epidemics of Philadelphia.” American Journal of the Medical Sciences (Isaac Hays, Ed.). Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea, 1873, pp. 133-134. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=TBECAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true
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of the World. New York: Harper &
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[1] Compiled by B. Wayne Blanchard, November 2019 for inclusion in website Deadliest American Disasters and Large-Loss-of-Life Events, accessible at: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
[2] “Table of mortality from small-pox in the city of Chicago from 1851 to 1882, inclusive.”
[3] “The report of the Health Office34r for last week shows that there were seventy-two cases of small-pox, of which twenty-two proved fatal.”
[4] Mitchell (1920, p. 13) wrote that there were 1,179 smallpox deaths in Cincinnati during 1870-1871 time-frame. We show 332 Ohio Smallpox deaths for 1870, thus we subtract those to derive the 857 fatality number used here.
[5] Table entitled “Deaths from Smallpox from 1807 to 1907, inclusive, and Rate per 1,000 of Population.” Notes death rate of 2.78 per 1,000 population. 1870 death rate was 0.01.
[6] Our number based on NYT statement that the 233 smallpox deaths the week of Nov 26 were eighty more than previous week.
[7] “Philadelphia. Dec. 3.—The health report shows 233 deaths from small-pox during the past week, being an increase of eighty over the week before. The number of new cases is 300 less than last week.”
[8] “The smallpox epidemic of the winter of 1871-72 was entirely without a parallel in this city, whether we regard the number of individuals attacked or the virulence of the disease. Indeed it was everywhere characterized by extreme severity.”
[9] “In looking upon the late epidemic of smallpox as a whole, extending into two years, we may consider it as lasting just one year (from September, 1871, to August, 1872, both inclusive), for in the last week of August, of both 1871 and 1872, there were no deaths from that cause, and although in all in the eight preceding months of 1871 there were 29, and in the four succeeding months of 1872, 18 deaths, yet these numbers are so small that I think we are justified in looking upon the epidemic as of just one year’s duration; in which year we find the unprecedented number of 4417 deaths from smallpox alone.”
[10] We have subtracted the 24 fatal cases apparently taking place in 1872 from the 120 fatal cases occurring May 1, 1871 to April 26, 1872, giving us 96.
[11] Brooklyn was in independent city until it was annexed into New York City as a borough in 1898.